Venn Diagrams
About 6 min · General Intelligence and Reasoning · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 367 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Venn Diagrams are a visual method to represent logical relationships between different sets or categories. In SSC GD, these questions test your ability to understand how groups overlap, remain separate, or contain each other.
Key ideas
- Set representation: A set is any collection of distinct objects or people. In Venn Diagrams, each circle represents one complete set or category.
- Disjoint sets: Two or more sets with no common members are shown as separate, non-touching circles. Example: Dogs, Chairs, Books have nothing in common, so three separate circles.
- Overlapping sets: When two sets share some common members but each also has exclusive members, their circles partially overlap. Example: Students and Athletes—some students are athletes, some athletes aren't students, some students don't play sports.
- Subset relationship: When every member of Set A is also a member of Set B, draw circle A completely inside circle B. Example: Roses are a subset of Flowers; every rose is a flower, but not every flower is a rose.
- Three-set relationships: With three categories, you must determine which pairs overlap and which remain separate. The intersection region where all three circles meet represents items belonging to all three categories simultaneously.
Quick reference
- Disjoint: Completely unrelated items → separate circles (Lion, Moon, Table).
- Overlap: Some shared members → intersecting circles (Students, Athletes).
- Subset: All of A inside B → small circle within large (Sparrows ⊂ Birds).
- Hierarchy: A ⊂ B ⊂ C → three concentric circles (City ⊂ State ⊂ Country).
- Count formula: Total = sum of all distinct regions including "none."
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. In a class of 60 students, 35 students play cricket, 30 students play football and 10 students play both cricket and football. How many students play neither cricket nor football?
2. In a group of 80 people, 50 like tea, 40 like coffee and 15 like both tea and coffee. How many people like only tea?
3. In a group of 120 people, 70 read newspaper A, 50 read newspaper B, 45 read newspaper C, 25 read both A and B, 20 read both B and C, 15 read both A and C, and 10 read all three newspapers. How many people read exactly two newspapers?
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.
Read the full noteFlashcards for this topic
Saves this lesson and its 3 questions in this browser on this phone. No sign-in; nothing about you is saved or sent. A saved copy is not updated until you save it again. Parts that load from the server when you use them (the AI tutor, adaptive practice, sign-in) still need a connection.